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Leafs at 100: Tim Horton never got the chance to enjoy post-retirement career

By Kevin SheaSpecial to the Star

Sat., Feb. 18, 2017

Until the National Hockey League Players’ Association was established in 1967 (and on its heels, the World Hockey Association in 1972), making players’ wages respectable, most NHL players were forced to take summer employment. Tim Horton had spent summers working in Conn Smythe’s gravel pits, but while considering a job that would follow his retirement from hockey, he fell into a career that has become his legacy.

Horton experimented with several businesses before hitting paydirt with coffee and doughnuts. A used car dealership preceded his initial venture into fast food. Impressed with the success of hamburger franchises operated by former teammates Gord and Ray Hannigan (Hannigan Burger King), Horton tried his hand at hamburger and chicken restaurants, opening five short-lived outlets. “They flopped,” he later admitted. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

A Tim Horton Donut shop had opened in Toronto in 1963, part of the burgeoning restaurant chain being established. While the burger and chicken enterprises were failing, the doughnut market had begun to fly in southern Ontario. In April 1964, without benefit of fuss or fanfare, a Tim Horton Donut Drive-In opened in a former gas station on Ottawa Street in Hamilton.

Immediately successful, the store capitalized on the doughnut craze sweeping the province. Coffee was all but an after-thought, contributing only 20 per cent to revenues. At that time, coffee and doughnuts were the only products offered, although there were as many as 40 varieties of doughnuts, including two original Tim Hortons creations — the Dutchie and the Apple Fritter.

A former Hamilton policeman, Ron Joyce, bought the franchise in 1965 and added another later that year. Joyce had learned the fast food business as a Dairy Queen franchisee. While Horton could only afford to spend one day a week on his outside businesses during the hockey season, he quickly realized that he needed a partner. In stepped Joyce.

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“He needed somebody who knew a little about the business,” Joyce said of Horton. “I was working there (in the doughnut shops) all the time. Once Tim accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to stay there just as an operator, that it had to be more than that, he accepted, and we became partners.” The paperwork was completed and on Dec. 1, 1966, Joyce joined Horton as partners in Tim Donut Ltd.

In a between-periods interview on Hockey Night in Canada in 1968, Horton was asked by intermission host Ward Cornell about his plans for retirement. The 38-year-old Horton answered, “Things are quite hectic these days, trying to combine business with hockey.”

Cornell replied, “You’re talking about your new doughnut chain.”

“Yes, Tim Hortons Donuts,” responded the veteran defenceman. “It’s nice of you to let me get a word in about it. If I may . . .”

“No,” Cornell interrupted with a grin.

“Well heck, I’m going to anyway,” Horton laughed, soldiering on. After Horton had thanked each store by city, Cornell kiddingly handed Horton a bill for the publicity. “We’d like to thank you for paying to be on ‘Hockey Night in Canada,’” he laughed.

By 1970, Tim Hortons was a chain of 21 stores when the first Tim Hortons opened in the GTA at Kennedy and Eglinton in Scarborough.

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On February 21, 1974, Tim Horton died in a horrific single-car accident. Just 44 years of age, Horton, who was still playing hockey, was returning to his home in Buffalo at 4:30 in the morning when he lost control and rolled his speeding Pantera sports car on the QEW near St. Catharines. He died instantly.

His Sabres had been beaten 4-2 by the Maple Leafs in a game in which he was injured but still was selected as one of the game’s three stars.

“He was hurting too bad to play a regular shift in the third period,” recalled Punch Imlach, the Sabres’ coach at the time. “We faded without him and lost the game to the Leafs. After the game, he and I took a little walk up Church Street and had what was our last talk. He was down in the dumps because he didn’t like to miss a shift and he felt he had cost us the game. I got on the bus with the team. Tim drove the cursed car back to Buffalo. He didn’t make it.”

At the time of his death, there were 40 Tim Hortons in existence. As of 2016, there were 4,492 locations in nine countries.

So while many Roll Up the Rim after enjoying a double-double and a doughnut at Tim Hortons, it takes fans of another generation to fully appreciate the name on the sign outside the restaurant.

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